Adding Custom Constants

Constants are one of the best features of GraphCalc. They are fully customizable and dynamically allocated at program startup. The data is contained in the file constants.dat. The file is a simple text file editable with any text editor like notepad.

Although the file looks complicated at first, it is very simply and logically organized. It proceeds like so:

Group :=	*GROUP*
	Group Name
	[SubGroup]*
	[Constant Name
	Constant Value]*
SubGroup :=	*Group*

This is the approximate EBNF (Extended Backus Naur Form) of the file. In english, it consists of the word "Group" surrounded by as many asterisks as it's level of recursion. For example, all master categories for be surrounded by a single *, while sub categories are surrounded by two *'s, etc. On the next line comes the name of that category. This can be almost any alpha-numeric string of reasonable length. The lines following that are either the name of a constant followed by its value, or the a sub group which contains more constants.

I know it doesn't sound simple, but just take a look at the file, and I'll bet you can figure it out quickly by looking at the existing constants. You may add any numbers at all. You may even make a constant a formula by putting a whole string equation in for the value of a constant. Constants may also contain other constants.

Rule of thumb: When playing with the constants file, just make a backup and then go nuts with it. You can always move the file back (or re-download it from GraphCalc.com). Happy configuring :)